Hi. I'll be going to London in September and I want to look for a job teaching refugees, but judging from some of the posts I've read this seems to be a very unpopular choice. Why is this? Is there something I should know?

Hi. I'll be going to London in September and I want to look for a job teaching refugees, but judging from some of the posts I've read this seems to be a very unpopular choice. Why is this? Is there something I should know?

Thanks

I have limited experience in this area (just one contract) but other things being equal the rewards are generally better if you work directly for a council or education authority. The problem is that some contract this work out to language schools who take their cut of the money.

My other observation would be that if you don't have to be in London you'd be more likely to make ends meet if you widened your job search to areas of the UK where the cost of living is a great deal less. Even if you take into account the London weightings attached to pay deals, it's often not worth it unless you have subsidised rent or free accommodation. In parts of greater Glasgow or Manchester the rent for a month is less than that for week in London.

I have also noted from others who teach refugees the distress that can derive from teaching people who have been through terrible experiences, difficulties of teaching classes in which the students are from the same background and a lack of motivation to learn English with other needs taking priority.

Last edited by Russell Hadd on Mon Jul 05, 2004 6:13 pm; edited 1 time in total

I'd concur with Russell's comments about working directly for a local authority or FE college. You should be able to get around 18/20 GBP per contact hour (possibly more in London), but there's an awful lot of part-time work and sessional contracts out there and getting enough hours is often a problem.

I'd agree also on the comments about London, but you may have particular reasons to go there. It's expensive and, perhaps surprisingly, the private language schools there seem to pay _less_ than outside London.

Refugees and ESOl students as a group are fine. Some of them have suffered trauma and may lack a little concentration at times, some are a lot more motivated than others - they differ like typical students in other words. You need to appreciate their backgrounds but more important IMO is to stress to them their status as students and all that entails.